Healthy Sashimi

4 days to go and counting

Breakfast: Oats so Simple Golden Syrup porridge pot

Lunch: Wagamama chicken ramen

Dinner: Cucumber sushi, salmon and beef sashimi, cooked prawns and egged sushi rice.

Snacks: No snacks today

Today was the last Monday I’ll ever spend in the office and so far, I’m not feeling any sadness at all. Once again, I’ve not had any work to do and as my Boss was sat next to me, I managed to find ‘stuff’ to do, which made it look like I wasn’t browsing random forums for most of the day. Whilst I have now concluded that I am, ‘officially bored of porridge’, I still have 5 pots of the stuff to use up, so had a pot for breakfast whilst talking to my lovely work colleague.

Last night, lovely work colleague and I went to the Cinema to watched ‘Ted 2’ – It was OK, a couple of funny ‘Heh’ moments in it, however I wouldn’t say it was an Oscar winning film by any standards. Lovely work colleague was telling me about a festival she went to and how she kissed her tattooist :-) Apparently it’s not going to go anywhere, but she seemed happy enough, so good for her, if you’re single, why not?

I don’t know if I’m unusual, however if my period is late, I always find that it’s heavier in general and sadly this month it looks like one of the SAW Horror films down there. Whilst I’m pretty un-phased about this, having had periods since I was 9 (If I have any daughters, it would be nice if they could start puberty later, I think starting so early was rather rubbish) the constant stomach ache has been rather unpleasant. 

In the ‘before time’, I’d usually console myself with chocolate or ‘treat’ myself to a takeaway as I was feeling a bit down in the dumps, however I’m still trying not to use food as an emotional crutch, so when I went to Wagamamas with my lovely work colleague and another work colleague (who is lovely, but we’re not as close) I stuck to ordering and eating my usual – the Chicken ramen dish which is one of the healthiest main dishes you can order.

After lunch, I took a quick detour so that I could grab a couple of things at Tescos, as I had another friend coming over after work and wanted to cook her some ‘Japanese awesomeness’ and with Japanese dishes, the fresher = the better. The rest of the afternoon was rather dull, so I made the time go faster by researching what my Boyfriend and I could do this weekend as we’re going away for a night…. Not that he knows where, as it’s still a secret :-) I found a Bee Farm nearby to where we’re staying and some really nice National Trust properties – so noted down the postcodes for Saturday and Sunday.

I left work at 4:30 as 'Why not?' and as soon as I got home, I started making the sushi rice as you need to let it stand for a minimum of 45 minutes before you can work with it. As my friend is also trying to eat healthy I thought I make her a sushi / sashimi dish with some extra rice and egg on the side. I kind of made it up as I went along, however I think it looks pretty awesome.

Tomorrow I'm working from home, so I plan to have a long lie in and then see how productive I can be tomorrow. As I'm officially still working, I'm mostly bound to my house and if any emails come in, I will of course, answer them.. However apart from that? Hrm.. I might try and sort out my kitchen cupboard which is rather crowded at the moment... Rock and Roll!

Well, that's a bit of an anti climax

Today didn't really start off like I expected

Last night after I blogged: 1 large glass and 1 small glass of red wine

Breakfast: Oats so simple Golden Syrup porridge pot with blueberries

Lunch: Wholemeal pita bread, 1/2 a pot of houmous, raw pepper and handful of tomatoes

Dinner: BBQ Chicken breast with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber

Snack: Bakewell Tart nakd bar

Last night, my boyfriend and I went to a pub for a pint of diet coke, or in my case, a glass of red wine - a large glass of red wine, which turned into 1 large glass and 1 small glass of red wine. As I don't drink very often, I was rather drunk and after a nice 1.5 hours of chatting in the pub, he drove me home and I spent the next few minutes working out what I could eat as I had the munchies... 

I've been quite good in not having any chocolate in my house, so I'm not easily tempted to shove it all in my face - With that option unavailable to me, I did manage to find prawn crackers and frozen gyoza dumplings. 15 minutes later, I had 8 dumplings and some prawn crackers and was eating them with sweet chili sauce whilst watching 'Googlebox'. I then went to bed and slept for a few hours, before waking up in the middle of the night as my flea / mosquito bites were itching, scratching my leg, my leg bleeding and falling back to sleep...  I woke up this morning with dried blood on my leg - Lovely :-S

Do I regret eating more food than I needed? Not really, no - People do it when drunk and I'm human. The old me would have berated herself, felt like a failure and have thought 'Well, no point in continuing my healthy eating as the scales won't show a good number for ages, now.' and that would have usually signalled the end of my diet. The new me is looking at this a bit more pragmatically - Yeah, it wasn't ideal, but these things happen - It will happen again, I'm sure. I'm going to fancy a drink at some points in time and at some other points, I'm sure I'll get the munchies. I can't go back and change what I ate yesterday, but I can change what I eat today and as such, it will be back to normal with the healthy lifestyle :-)

I got into work really early this morning as I needed to print off, sign and scan in all the new job documents and there were quite a few. I wanted to do it early so no-one asked me what I was doing, nor managed to look at any of the documents. With that done, I emailed my Boss, asking him for a meeting as we usually have one on a Monday, anyway. Unfortunately, he emailed back and said it would be tight and could we have a phone call in the afternoon? Sure, I replied, but it would be good to talk to him today, whenever is best for him.

As it turns out, he arrived at work at 10:30 and suggested we have a quick catch up - As I wasn't mentally prepared, I rushed what I was trying to say which was basically 'Not happy, want to leave, please pay me money if you want my resignation now'.... 

I appreciate that some people might not agree with my approach. 'Why bother?' Just resign as you've got another job' and if I hadn't have been subjected to such horrible behavior over the last few months, that's exactly what I would do. However, I've worked my absolute butt off, over the last 5 years - I've opened offices overseas, undertaken office moves, sorted out things that weren't working on Bank Holidays, I was even running the company when my Boss's son sadly died last year - None of which was within my job description, but I did it as it was needed. So to witness my Boss have 'super secret' meetings to coach the woman I assume he's been sleeping with and take away various departments and responsibilities from me and give them to her, just isn't acceptable behavior. Being excluded from meetings I've attended for over 2.5 years without being told why, isn't acceptable and being pushed out from the company isn't acceptable.

So my plan is to see if I can get my Boss to pay me to resign. He doesn't know I have a job offer and as I have 10 days to accept it, I can play for time. Also, my mental health is a lot better knowing I won't be working here in a few weeks. So worst case = Boss says no to paying me, and I resign. Best case, Boss says yes to paying me and I resign. Either way, I'll be leaving soon. After I garbled my words out, my Boss asked for time to think about it, saying he didn't see the point of garden leave and he'd consider what I was asking and we'd talk again on Wednesday.....Watch this space!

Work was really, really, really... boring. I don't have a lot to do at the moment which is a rarity, but as such, I find it soul destroying to sit at my desk and not actually, well, work! I mostly emailed my friends and read online forums which isn't exactly good practice, but I've totally checked out of this job now, so it's just playing a bit of a waiting game. Thankfully I got to walk into town with my lovely work friend at lunch time, even if it was just to grab some salad bits for tonights dinner. 

After work, I headed back and marinated some chicken breasts in BBQ sauce for the makeshift BBQ I was planning to do with my Boyfriend, watched 'The Last Ship' (a post Zombie apololyptic drama, directed by Michael Bay so loads of things blow up) before heading over to my Boyfriends house. We sat in his garden, chatting, whilst the chicken cooked on the BBQ and I told him what had happened at work and how I can't wait to leave in a few weeks time. 

Dinner was really nice - I love BBQ's and anything marinated in BBQ sauce gets my vote instantly :-) Once finished, we headed inside and found something on TV that we could both watch 'Shed of the year', which is this weird program where people in the UK make crazy things out of their sheds - A Japanese Tea House, a World War 2 land Girls hut, a 1950's diner... Crazy stuff! We also cuddled a lot, which for me is really enjoyable as I've felt a lot closer to my boyfriend over the past few months - probably because he's been really supportive over my work stress. 

I'm now back home watching South Park and am looking forward to hopefully getting a really long sleep tonight as it seems to be a bit cooler? 

Smelling nice and eating healthy

Isn’t it funny how a random act of kindness or thoughtfulness from someone can make such a difference to your day?

Monday is more than 50% over and as I’ve got a days holiday tomorrow, I’m already feeling positive that I can get through the next few days without feeling too stressed. Unfortunately my sleep was quite interrupted last night and when I woke at 4:00am this morning, I found myself going through different work scenarios in my head and imagining conversations with my Boss, where he was telling me I was useless and I was giving him loads of examples about why that wasn’t the case. After getting up at the normal time, I managed to resist the scales saying ‘Stand on me, stand on meeeeee’, so won’t know what I weigh until tomorrow, which is of course, the end of June. I’m hoping I’ve lost some more weight since the last weigh in, but if I haven’t, I still think I’ve done rather well this month.

Getting into work, I ate another pot of Caramel flavoured porridge (Sainsburys – Please stock up on the Golden Syrup ones again!) had a cup of tea, did some more job hunting and then got on with various figures, statistics and other fun things that I had on my ‘to do’ list. Whilst deeply emerged in spreadsheets and pivot tables, one of my colleagues came up and gave me a book to read – I don’t usually talk to him and we don’t really have any kind of work relationship, although we’re always polite to each other. He said he’d read it and thought I might like to read it as well, as it’s very similar to some other books we discussed over 6 months ago. It was a really small thing, but I felt so touched and almost grateful, that in this company, where some people still seem to be ignoring me, others are treating me like a human being.

Another thing that helped me get through the day was the fact that one of my eBay deliveries came today. It’s a small thing, but I’ve found the most amazing smelling body lotion that I just love – However as it’s Molton Brown it means it’s mega expensive, so I tend to buy 2 of the really small bottles as it lasts for ages and I can keep one on my desk and one in my handbag in ‘emergencies’. I don’t know why, but smelling nice really does seem to boost my happiness and smelling of ‘Japanese Orange’ is great. I tend to associate it with ‘Being a grown up’ as it’s quite a sophisticated smell – I can’t really describe it any other way, really, however sticking some on my arms and hands and typing away, smelling myself (oo-er missus!) made me quite happy.

As it’s a Monday, I should have had a meeting with my Boss, however by 1:15 he hadn’t tuned up and I was starving, so I left a post-it note on his desk and headed out to lunch with my lovely work friend and another work colleague who started a few months ago who sits on our bank of desks. We’d arranged to go to Wagamama’s and despite being really hungry, I opted for an incredibly healthy option – The chicken ramen, with 510 calories per portion and only 10g of fat. Lovely work friend suggested we get an outside table as the weather was amazing, so we sat in the sunshine, chatting for nearly an hour, eating some very nice food.

Getting back to the office, my Boss was at his desk and said he wanted to push our meeting back until Thursday – Not a problem at all! That gives me more time to get things done and means I don’t have to talk to him about stuff until after my interview on Wednesday. He then left the office at 2:30pm for a 7 hour ‘private meeting’ with the woman I suspect him of sleeping with, so it meant he wasn’t sitting next to me, making me nervous either :-)

I’m leaving the office now as I’m off to see my friend and get my eyelashes sorted – for the first two weeks they looked awesome and I was hardly ‘moulting’ at all. Unfortunately in the last week, loads of them have fallen out and now I look like I’ve got a few spiders hidden in my eyelids, with their long spindly legs poking out. It’s another thing that makes me feel good about myself and I think it really makes a difference to my appearance. I should get back by 8:30-9:00pm which is quite late to cook, so I’m going to default to my pita bread, houmous and a pepper for dinner. It’s almost as if my lunch and dinner have flipped places today…

Tomorrow is the end of June, so stayed tuned for the all important photo of my scales – Fingers crossed the number will be a good one! 

Now I know....

So that's what's been going on behind my back at work.....

I’ve spent most of today in a very anxious state as I had my scheduled meeting with my Boss today. After sleeping quite well, I woke at 5:45 and found it virtually impossible to get back to sleep as I was running through work related things in my head and working out how many hours I had until I had to be in a room with him. Despite my head being full of worry, I managed to remember my breakfast (porridge and blueberries) and my lunch, which was the last portion of my healthy moussaka, hiding in my fridge.

Work was quite busy in the morning and kept my brain focussed on other things – As my lovely work colleague had arranged lunch with someone else, I decided I’d stay in the office and work through my lunch break, eating at my desk. I don’t really like doing this on a normal basis, however for some reason felt quite vulnerable and didn’t want to walk to town on my own. This was compounded by the fact that the weather was pretty dire and whilst I had an umbrella, I used the torrential downpour as an excuse to stay indoors.

My meeting happened at 1:00, as per usual and after 30 minutes of discussing updates, my Boss said ‘As it’s your appraisal tomorrow, I thought we could discuss what’s going to happen with the company and where you want to go with your role’…… You know when you’ve gone over and over and over something in your head and feared the worst? I honestly think I’ve gone over the scenario so many times, I was totally calm. Long story short – There are a lot of structural changes happening in the company and people are getting promoted and things are changing. This means that my role doesn’t really ‘fit’ in anywhere… and due to people ‘losing a lot of confidence in me’ apparently, it will be ‘doubly hard’, to sort things out…..

The conclusion? There isn’t one at the moment – My Boss wants to know if I’m ‘up for the challenge’ which, of course, I have to say I am (as I don’t have another job offer on the table yet), however it was quite upsetting to hear critical feedback when he wasn’t able to give me examples. Oddly though, I’m not as upset as I thought I would be as 1. I don’t believe he’s conducted himself in a very good manner (all the meetings with my teams, not inviting me etc…) and 2. If you’re not able to give examples, how can you be expected to actually believe the feedback is true?

Additionally, if this is ‘all’ that’s going to happen – e.g. someone else get promoted and the structure change, it also means that I don’t have to get a job offer straight away as I can coast for a few weeks until I get a firm one, that I won’t be sacked and that I will be able to pay the bills. I guess we’ll see tomorrow if anything else happens at my appraisal, however as I’ve got a final interview on Wednesday, and hopefully one on Thursday, I’m really hoping I can resign by the end of this week (Wow.. that’s kinda cool, really).

Another thing that’s on my mind at the moment is that today marks the 3 year anniversary of my cat being put to sleep. He was a rescue Persian who I adopted when he was 5. Sadly he was incredibly mistreated and the rescue center were appalling. When I adopted him, he had fleas, ear mites, a perforated ear drum, an eye ulcer, chronic cystitis and ringworm. The Rescue center refused to help with the bills and despite me being a student, I paid everything – which over the first 18 months of his life cost me £4,000. The next 8 years of my life were filled with a cat who was incredibly ‘screwed up’, who would urinate everywhere (even on you) and who sadly, never was able to get rid of his ringworm, despite being shaved and washed multiple times.

Despite him being the worlds most evil cat who honestly nearly drove me to distraction and cost me thousands, I loved him to bits and don’t regret a second of it. Unfortunately he got thinner and thinner and thinner and I realised he wasn’t happy so made the decision to have him put to sleep (based on the vets opinion that he looked like he was getting to the point of kidney failure). I still can’t write about what happened on the last day as it still brings tears to my eyes, but I can honestly say it was the hardest decision and most upsetting day of my life to date – not even my relatives dying has come close to the pain I felt. I was very lucky that my Boyfriend was there to support me and I know that he loved him too, even though he didn’t know him for as long. Three years today – I still miss you Bailey.

In the next hour, I’m going to be heading home with my lovely work friend, where we will make vegan sushi and watch the last episode of ‘Geordie Shore’ before launching into a marathon of the new series of ‘Love Island’, which I’m told is absolute tripe and really bad – Perfect for us :-) I’m looking forward to getting out of the office and hopefully getting rid of my headache that’s been dogging me for the past few hours. I’ll continue to healthy eat tonight, but am feeling quite vulnerable and really like the idea of just getting a hug from my boyfriend who I’m sadly not seeing until tomorrow. 

Getting food as presents - What do you do?

After the awesome number on the scales this morning, I thought this day wouldn't be too bad

And indeed it wasn't.

My lovely vegan work colleague / friend was back from her holiday and she bought me some really thoughtful presents - We always get each other magnets from our holiday destinations, however she also bought me some chocolate biscuits as well as some mango (which I love). It's always nice to receive gifts, especially when you're not expecting them, however what do you do when it's food? It's one thing to have enough will power not to buy certain things, but when they're given to you, it's quite tricky. On one hand, you want to eat them, on the other, you want to bin them as you don't want to be tempted - However then there's the guilt, why throw things away when they're perfectly edible?

I don't want to appear ungrateful, so I said thank you and said I'd look forward to eating them later and now they're at home, in a cupboard, away from sight. I'm thinking of giving them to a friend at the weekend as I know she'll enjoy them and isn't healthy eating. That way they are used, but I'm not the one using them :-)

Now I'm back at home, already in my Pyjamas, watching the last 2 episodes of Pride and Prejudice (the BBC adaptation, not any inferior production!) having ate another portion of the spaghetti and meatballs I made on Saturday night. Lunch was  a pepper, some tomatoes, a pita bread and houmous and breakfast was my obligatory porridge and blueberries so I think it's been a pretty healthy day really.

I also spoke to my Dad tonight on the phone - For once, the conversation wasn't as strained as usual. He's not a bad man per se, however I do think that some of my issues around food, my weight and appearance stem from him and how he treated me as a child. It's only been through months of counselling (which started as I needed an operation and am terrified of injections but after the operation we continued talking about things) that I've been able to unravel things in my head and actually, calling an 11 year old girl who's going through puberty 'fat' is not a good idea, nor is constantly pointing out how much she's eating.... 

However, my Dad was actually really supportive on the phone in regards to my job and actually said some things that made sense. I don't think we'll ever have a close relationship, unlike that of my Mother and I, but having a polite relationship with him is a lot better than I had growing up and at least I know now what's acceptable behaviour....

As it's half way through June, I'm going to make a real effort to make the last 2 weeks as positive as possible, not only in regards to food, but in regards to taking care of myself and sorting things out such as getting rid of old clothes and using things in my cupboards I've had for ages.

And the fact my Boss is in London tomorrow means that work will be happier and less stressful :-)

Interview tomorrow

I've not been to an interview for over 5 years

Taken them, yes - hundred of telephone and face to face interviews for various roles in my company, however I've not actually been the recipient for a very long time. I wasn't sure if this was a good job for me, however the more I've researched the company and the role, it actually sounds quite interesting and if I'm going to go to an interview, I'd much rather revise / prepare and research the company as much as I can, otherwise what's the point unless you give it your all?

I don't know if I'll pass the test (yes, there's a 90 minute test first) let alone the interview stage afterwards, but I'm trying to remain positive, not allow my nerves to take over and am currently ignoring the voice in my head that says 'You're not good enough'. 

Work was fine, especially considering my lovely colleague is on Holiday so I'm picking up all of her responsibilities as well. I also survived the weekly meeting with my Boss - I still believe he's hiding something, but either way, it's another week of surviving. 

I am not ignoring my body, however - I think as time goes on, I'm genuinely feeling less hungry between meals. I don't know if it's because my body doesn't expect crisps / chocolate every few hours or because my stomach has shrunk, maybe it's a combination of the two? Either way, after I walked into town to get some houmous, tomatoes, pepper and some calamari (thought it made a change from the pita breads!) I happily munched my lunch at 1:00pm and am just about to eat my dinner 6 hours later.....  

I didn't eat all of the tomatoes (maybe a quarter of the pack?) and also only ate half of the houmous. I did however, eat all of the calamari and the pepper :-)

Dinner was as I planned, a really healthy KFC wrap which is one of those dishes where it shouldn't taste as good as it does, as it's quite low in fat? Tomorrow will be more difficult as I'm in London for the interview so I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do about lunch. I think I might buy a big bottle of water, take one of my nakd bars with me so if I don't get chance to have lunch, I won't be as ravenous as I could be, afterwards. When I'm really, really hungry, my willpower decreases, so I want to give myself a fighting chance to avoid that.

I'm still really pleased with the figure the scales showed this morning, however I shouldn't become complacent, nor should I assume things will continue at the same pace, especially as my period is due in 3 days and that always plays havoc with my body and weight. So I'll stay away from the scales for another week at least -In some ways, I actually think that staying away from the scales is harder than not eating junk food... It's as if I need the positive reinforcement from something as without it, I don't know if I'd be able to keep motivated.

Tonight I'm going to take care of myself - I'm going to revise a little bit more and then I'm going to have a bath, make sure I know what I'm wearing tomorrow and get an early night.

.. Wish me luck! :-)

Spinning - getting back in the saddle

Normal service has been resumed.

I hate running. It seems so pointless, especially when you have such amazing devices called ‘cars’ who can get you to where you need to go a lot quicker than you can run, with the added advantage of being able to turn up to your destination completely fresh and non-sweaty.

I appreciate that’s a very contentious view, however it’s just not for me. I’ve done it before and I’ve never enjoyed it, neither when I start, or a few months later, when I can run further and faster – it’s just not my thing. I think it’s because I’ve got a rather large chest and the sports bras I have to wear are robust, to say the least. Added to which, I’m not a team player – I don’t think I’m an evil person or a loner at all, after all I have a lot of lovely friends who I care for, amazing sisters and amazing boyfriend, however the thought of doing team based sports holds no attraction for me.

So why would I put myself through that? It’s the same as eating things you don’t like when on a ‘diet’, it’s a temporary thing, a ‘quick fix’, that you’ll never sustain as, in the end: You just don’t enjoy it.

So, about 2 years ago, I decided I’d try spinning – Rather than running from one place to another, instead of using a car, I thought I’d cycle on a bike for miles, whilst remaining in the same place – equally as pointless :-), but in my opinion, 100% more enjoyable. Why? Well, I guess it depends on your instructor and the class, however for me, it fitted my ‘exercise criteria’:

1. I could sit at the back of the class and no one seemed to look at me – Unlike aerobics, where you jump around and people inadvertently are behind you and you’re paranoid about them seeing your butt jiggle. You don’t have that in spinning (especially if you’re in the back row)

2. It’s done in the dark – Hurrah, yet another plus point is that once the lights are off, there’s even less emphasis on my jiggling and I feel much less self conscious

3. You can go at the speed you want – I hate being told what to do, it’s like a massive thing for me. If someone orders me to do something, I’ll do the opposite. In spinning YOU work as hard as YOU want to work, so I get out, what I put in, without feeling out of place.

4. It’s got good music – This is more of an instructor thing, however I like dance music and things that get me enthusiastic. Listening to the music in a spin class is enjoyable whilst I’m doing exercise.

5. It doesn’t hurt my back – I’ve got a lower back injury which can flare up from time to time. So long as I’m careful and bend properly, it doesn’t aggravate it at all. 

I’m actually quite a wimp when it comes to trying new things – Despite being a ‘grown up’, I actually find it quite scary to go to somewhere, on my own. That’s why I’m thankful that my brilliant work friend offered to come with me for the first few lessons. After all, I find things are a lot less scary if you go with someone else. She’s massively into the gym, so going with someone who already knew the ropes, so to speak, was very reassuring.

After not going to the gym for 3 months, I went tonight and now I feel really, really good about myself. I’ve eaten healthy food today and I’ve exercised – that’s despite having a massive stress-out about my job and the meeting with my Boss earlier today.

Dinner was grabbed from Marks and Spencers, but even then I tried to be mindful of what I was eating and went for a tomato and basil chicken breast with some peas and some parmentier potatoes. With a little salad cream on the side, it was really nice and very filling :-)

Stress, Anxiety and Healthy Eating

Stress is one way to lessen your hunger - Not sure if that's a good thing, though..

Apparently stress and nutrition are strongly linked - Someone with a healthy, balanced diet is allegedly supposed to be far less stressed than someone who shoves all manner of junk into their gob.

Unfortunately, despite eating healthily for a month, that doesn’t seem to stop me being incredibly stressed when it comes to work and no amount of healthy eating seems to change that, which is not good from either a mental perspective, nor a physical one.

Mondays are doubly painful for me at the moment. Not only are they the start of the week, but they’re also the day that my Boss and I have a scheduled ‘catch up’ meeting which is in our diaries for just after lunch. After glancing at his calendar, there are a number of private appointments in it (which is unusual) and a number of meetings booked with the person who I believe, he is lining up to take over my role. This sent my paranoia into complete overdrive and at once I was imagining being homeless, being out of work for months, my meeting with my Boss being one of terror – him telling me I’m awful and giving me lots of grief.

I think I react to stress in a ‘normal’ way, although I do believe I’ve got massively high anxiety levels in general. When stressed, my stomach constricts, I feel sick and if it’s really bad, I tend to visit the toilet on more than one occasion – When stressed, I’m not hungry at all and apparently that could be because my stomach produces excess stomach acid, which tricks my body into believing it’s fuller than it actually is and the chemicals that tell my brain I’m hungry, aren’t able to reach it.

Additionally, Serotonin (a neurotransmitter that regulates mood) apparently plays a role in both anxiety and the feeling of hunger. Since people with anxiety can sometimes have a serotonin balance issue, it's possible that this is one of the reasons that I don't get hungry when experiencing high anxiety.

Dreading my meeting with my Boss, I walked into town at 12:00 and bought some lunch. I was going to go for a low fat sandwich, however remembered my June goals, one of which is ‘Try and eat less processed food’ so I opted for my default lunch of tomatoes, pepper, pitta bread and hoummous (I’m going to think of something else to eat next week, as I’ll get bored of it pretty quickly). It was lovely going into town – I think you forget that the place you work is not ‘the world’, that it’s actually such a small part of the world, but to you, it’s massive. It’s like that for me, at any rate – After being at the company for over 5 years, it’s really sad to think that I’m not going to be there any longer, that I won’t see the nice people I work with every day and that the Manager I trusted and worked alongside, is making decisions that affect me, without consulting me.

I usually eat lunch as soon as I get back to the office – after all, I had 30 minutes until my meeting. However, I just didn’t feel hungry at all. Despite only eating porridge with Blueberries for Breakfast at 8:00am, I couldn’t feel even the smallest pangs of hunger, so I decided to wait until after my meeting.

I went in…. and 45 minutes later, I came out. Massively relieved that the worry I had was not realised this week – My Boss didn’t have a go at me, he didn’t moan or admonish me, there was even praise and a Thank-you for something I had picked up. Like so many things in life, what was in my head was 100 times worse than what had happened in the meeting. Do I think my paranoia is unfounded? Sadly not, however maybe the time I have left in the company won’t be as dire as I’m believing it to be.

It was as if someone had flicked a switch, my anxiety and stress lessened and

my stomach started rumbling really loudly, so I finally settled down to lunch at 14:00. It hit the spot and I now feel a lot more energised and happy that I’ll be able to get through this week without being asked to leave. It’s hardly a state I can remain in for long, however I’m hoping I can find a fantastic new opportunity before too long.

Tonight, I’m going spinning – My other June goal is to ‘go to the gym once a week’ will be achieved if I go every Monday, which works for me in regards to my busy social life. After not going for over 3 months, I’m a little apprehensive about going, but there’s no substance to that – I mean, what am I apprehensive about? Just a change in my routine I guess, and the sooner I get back into the gym, the better I’ll feel and the better I’ll be able to cope with stress. NO EXCUSES!

Healthy meal planning

It might be effort to do, but it makes my healthy eating easier

If you're a naturally organised person, meal planning shouldn't be too much of an issue - I actually really enjoy it as it's almost as if I'm creating a week menu from scratch. 

Not only does it mean that I don't buy random food that goes off, thus saving me money - it also means I can ensure I'm planning to eat healthy meals, rather than just buy things on the fly or get home after work to realise I don't have anything I can eat in, and then potentially 'give in' to a takeaway as it's too much effort to go out and buy something at the Supermarket. Why put temptation in my way?

I tend to meal plan, looking at my Google calendar - as I'm always out and about, seeing friends, spending time with my Boyfriend and potentially staying away overnight, this all needs to be taken into account when meal planning - if it's a recipe for 2 or more people and I'm not cooking for anyone else, rather than myself, I can plan to eat the same thing for lunch the next day so long as I'm working in the office and not at a meeting or doing anything random. 

This week should be pretty cool as tomorrow I'm off work and the next few days, I'm seeing a friend, getting my fake eyelashes (Really looking forward to this, even though it sounds like I'm going to look all 'Essex' with massive fake lashes, they are quite short and just make my eyes look bigger).

After my 'cake and hummus crisps' day today, I'm going to skip porridge tomorrow and finish off the blueberries, strawberries and raspberries I've got in the kitchen... and wash it down with some green tea.

Most of the rest of the week looks like this:

Tuesday lunch: Chicken salad

Tuesday dinner: Mediterranean vegetables with lamb (192 calories / 9g fat per portion) 

Wednesday breakfast: Porridge with blueberries

Wednesday lunch: Mediterranean vegetables with lamb

Wednesday night: Tuna steak and steamed vegetables

Thursday breakfast:  Porridge with blueberries

Thursday lunch: pita bread with raw pepper and cucumber with some low fat hummus

Thursday night: Pita bread with chicken and raw peppers 

(I'm out until 9pm, so am going to take this with me and eat it before I get to my friends house)

Friday breakfast: Porridge with blueberries

Friday lunch: Pita bread with raw pepper, chicken and hummus

Friday night: Low fat chilli with salad

(one of my friends is coming over so I'm cooking for her)

Saturday breakfast: Porridge

Rest of Saturday: Depends on what vegetables get delivered on Friday in my vegetable box! My boyfriend and I will no doubt find something amazing to cook :-)

Sunday: Too far away to plan yet... 

I know this is too anal for some people and they prefer to 'life each day as it comes', but I can't do that as firstly, I'm a planner, and secondly, if I've had a crap day at work, get home and don't have anything nice to cook, I find it too easy to turn to junk food and this is just falling into my old habits.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the week being healthy and looking forward to fitting into those size 14 jeans at Christmas even more!

So much vegan food!

It's great having friends who have different lifestyles as you open your mind so much

Today is a good day as I'm not at work. Today is also a good day as I spent a lot of it with one of my lovely friends and we caught up on Geordie Shore episodes as well as watching 'The secret world of Tinder' 'My 600lb life' and 'Louis Therox and extreme bodybuilding'. We also ate A LOT of food and as she's been vegan for years, it was all vegan - so no meat or dairy at all.

You could tell it would be a day of food after she brought some amazing hummus and hummus chips with her - They are utterly delicious and munching them watching Geordie Shore was bliss. Thing is, just because it's vegan, it doesn't mean it's 'healthy', so I did try and maintain some willpower when eating them - I was getting hungry as it was near lunch which didn't help. I think it's one thing to not buy something that looks good in the supermarket, however it's so much harder not to eat something that looks good when it's in your living room and your friend is saying 'I brought this over for us'.

Lunch consisted of vegan sweet potato and butternut squash moroccan tagine with giant couscous. I've done this recipe loads before with chicken, so by substituting the chicken with the sweet potato and the chicken stock cube with a vegan stock cube, hey presto... you've got a lovely and very tasty lunch! (I'm sure the taste was helped by the fact we were watching 2 gay guys find some 'fun' on Tinder whilst dressed in leather.... we do LOVE our crazy documentaries on Channel 5!)

After lunch, I suggested we try and do something with the rhubarb my Mother had given me as I really want to use it up - We decided on a cake. We looked for a lot of recipes and most of the vegan rhubarb cake recipes used crumble on the top, so we gave it a go.... 

Most of the cake recipes we read used yeast... however it also said 'prove it for an hour' - both of us are quire impatient so we just used self raising flour and chucked a lot of baking powder in there, instead. 

We also used cocoa, which the recipe (we actually didn't really follow one, we just shoved loads of ingredients in the bowl) didn't suggest and popped some crumble on the top using some the 'Pure' vegan spread and self raising flour.. 

I have to say, it didn't turn out too badly. It was edible, however we didn't put any sugar into the crumble so it was a little tart and also a little bit tooooo crumbly! However, not a bad attempt considering we didn't really follow a recipe!

As I've got tomorrow off as well, I'm thinking of meal planning in the morning and going shopping for what I need - I genuinely do much better with my healthy eating when I'm able to meal plan, I also find a waste a lot less food. Happy Bank Holiday Monday!

Another awesome use of Quorn

Salads don't have to be boring

Sometimes I really don't want to cook for hours on end, but don't really want to have a ready meal either. No matter how 'good' the ready meals are, they still don't seem to taster as good as a meal I've prepared myself.

So what's the compromise? Well, tonight I made a salad, but didn't really fancy putting chicken or meat with it, so decided to try one of the new Quorn products. 

This looked a little bit more interesting than the normal Quorn and I'm partial to anything that has the words 'Southern Fried' in it - especially when those words aren't accompanied by massive amounts of fat or calories!

It was a basic salad - beetroot, tomatoes, cucumber and lettuce with some croutons and a small amount of cheddar cheese. I then popped the Quorn in the oven for 18 minutes (it said 12, however I had frozen them beforehand for 6 weeks - they were absolutely fine to freeze and defrost) and chopped it up to put over the salad.

I'm not really keen on most salad dressings, they're either too vinegary or too creamy and if they're creamy, you can guarantee that you've 'undone' all the good you're planning on doing to your body with vitamins if you're going to shove lots of full-fat dressing in your mouth as well. Well, worry not - Hey presto, this stuff is brilliant!

Less than 0.5g of fat per 15ml serving and only 42 calories. It's so much lighter than other dressings and tastes really, really nice.

The entire salad was rather yummy and took less than 20 minutes to prepare, including oven baking the Quorn. My boyfriend didn't even realise it was Quorn until I said something!

Monday wasn't too bad....

I survived work and made an awesome dinner

So despite having the usual stomach aches about going to work today, it wasn't too bad - I swear I'm turning into Garfield and hating Mondays, which proves I should get a new job! My Manager was actually pretty decent in our meeting and despite my colleague being on holiday (she was in Madrid, visiting a Shamen apparently....You drink weird tea made of bark and find yourself or something?) I was happily busy but not totally manic. 

Breakfast today was the obligatory porridge with blueberries and lunch was the leftover tamarind fish curry. I think I still struggle with portion control, so one of the good things about the tubs I have for food is that they're pretty 'normal' size, so I can't overfill and thus, overeat.

After work, I started cooking early as my boyfriend was coming over and we were going on a Monday jaunt to IKEA... Hardly the most exciting place in the world, however I found lots of weird insect things, living in my sugar - I don't actually use sugar very often at all, as I don't use it in my tea.. I also found them in the flour bag! They're apparently called 'flour / dust mites' (cunning name, huh?) Anyway, rather than accepting that this happens every few months, I thought it might be more sensible to buy a lot of kilner jars and keep them in air tight containers, rather than have weird little creepy crawlies all over the place.

Dinner was awesome - It's a recipe I've made a number of times before and never fails to taste lovely. Moroccan chicken curry from the BBC Good Food Magazine:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2468641/moroccan-chicken-onepot 

I love it! It's amazing. I made it with giant wholewheat couscous and made enough so there were 3 portions, so something to look forward to at lunch time :-) 

Eating healthy has really changed how I feel about myself - I know I have such a long way to go, but I'm feeling really positive and definitely have more energy in the mornings. Even random things like, taking the bin out... hoovering... it's like, I don't ever think 'I can't be bothered', I just get on and do it. I guess it's the little things?